The G.A.A. - A Good or Bad thing?

andekwarhola

CrabRevolution wrote: »

There's no "ban" on the use of grounds for other sports. A county has to get permission from central council to use their grounds for other sport, though its rarely given..

So it's not 'banned' but HQ 'rarely give' permission (unless, one suspects, that you have the FAI over a barrel for a million a game).

Thanks for clearing that up.

Kiwi in IE

Several times when our local rugby club has hosted teams from another area, the adjoining GAA grounds have been used. I haven't seen any evidence of a ban on other sports using GAA grounds. I've heard stories about, when OH was a child, the GAA having issue with players also playing 'foreign sports' but this doesn't seem to be the case now. I've never been asked at the GAA if my son plays any other sport and several of the kids in his team are also in his rugby team, including the child of one of the GAA coaches.

Charles Babbage

Plenty of crap and anti Irish loathing in this thread which is what you would expect.
The GAA is an integral part of Irish life, as noted above it shares some of the failings, but also represents what is good about the country. It has harnessed tremendous community spirit throughout the country.
Every sport encourages its own interests and shows less concern for the interests of other ones.
Soccer routinely bribes players not to play GAA and gets them to sign contracts to that effect, not much mention of that here.

Hulk Hands

As always happens in these threads, Hurling gets a great rep but football is slated. Yet Football gets higher attendances, viewers, participants and media coverage than Hurling. Strange that. Its a bit like soccer and rugby, the bigger more established sport will get all the bad press while the other gets lavished with praise, yet they will always stay in the same pecking order of popularity. Ive played both and follow both heavily, the above just annoys me a bit

armaghlad

diomed wrote: »

Do you recognise the country of Ireland ruled by the government of Ireland, Dail Éireann?

In sporting terms I recognise I R E L A N D.

All 32 counties.

armaghlad

RadiationKing wrote: »

Oh well if they're in other parts of Europe that must mean they're not the same backwards, parochial GAA that operates here! :pac:

So the people spreading gaelic football and hurling in France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany are insular, backwards and parochial individuals? That's essentially what you're saying you wally.

rodneyTrotter.

PTH2009 wrote: »

its amazing to think lads playing in front of 80000 in croke park on a weekend will be getting up the next morning or 2 days after etc and going to work. some players train before and after work too

while messi, rooney and terry etc are about 180000 a week and have the whole day to do what they want when there training is done

Yes, and they play in the biggest sport in the world played by pretty much every country in the world and top of their game . A sport played by millions

The gaa lads are good at what they do but big fish in a small pond

I'm from Kerry and never really had any interest in football so was deemed "uncool" in school. That's my only experience of it really. Saying that I could easily sit through a match these days.

Arkady

The GAA, like any national Irish institution, reflects both the good and bad in Ireland.
No more, no less.

RadiationKing

armaghlad wrote: »

So the people spreading gaelic football and hurling in France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany are insular, backwards and parochial individuals? That's essentially what you're saying you wally.

Okay, whatever you think yourself there. :pac:

Dick phelan

Overall it's a great thing especially at grassroots level

Promotes a real sense of community unlike almost anything else.
Hurling in particular is fantastic to watch at the top level, honestly would prefer hurling at the highest level to any other sport.
Gives kids an important focus, keeps them fit and good to be part of a team.
Great for the Irish diaspora, you can travel all over the world and if ye need to make friends and want to feel connected to Ireland GAA clubs are the best place to start.

The Bad
In my experience GAA is very hostile toward other sports, they should not be promoting a divide and pressure kids from not playing other sports
Cronyism, particularly at the upper levels of the organization, the GAA makes a fortune but still seems to treat it's players very badly, few years back they refused to give each player 1 euro per mile in travel expenses and kept it at 50c.

GAA is too linked to politics, tons of TD's or counselors have big connections with the GAA, Also too much of jobs for the lads going on for players and administrators within the GAA

Greed Given that it's an amateur organisation the GAA certainly like's money, the Garath Brooks fiasco highlighted that, not content with the fortune they would get from 3 gigs they had to try get every penny and do 5 shows without any regard for the prior agreement they had made with residents, Ticket Prices also too high imo, considering they own the grounds and don't have to pay players prices should be kept low.

It's a great organization within the community, the skill is fantastic and if i move away going to matches would be one of the big things i'd miss about home, that said particularly at the top level of administration it represents a lot wrong with Ireland, a very bigoted closed minded viewpoint and plenty of cronyism and greed.

SEPT 23 1989

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Played by culchies or in the case of Dublin clubs children of culchies

Don't know any true blue Dub who really follows that sport

Hilarious. In a thread where the usual suspects with their pathological hatred of all things culturally Irish are giving out about GAA people allegedly saying they're the real Irish, we have somebody claiming, without irony, that Dubliners who play football or hurling (rather than the beloved garrison game, presumably) are not "true Dubliners".

When I played both rugby and soccer it was a big issue if you chose to play football over either of those sports on the Sunday, with the usual old threats of "you'll lose your place" if you do that. But, of course, in the twisted world of the Irish haters here, this only happens in the GAA. Bitterness, and nothing more to this one.

PTH2009

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

They've no life at all, work, training, sleep. No drinking for 9 months. It's a huge commitment these days to be on a senior county panel.

They get the best of women though. Imagine a lad going into first year of college after winning an all Ireland or any title he would have the pick of birds lol

Turfcutter

People continually mention the attitude in the GAA towards other sports. In my opinion the tables have long since turned and you're likely to encounter soccer and to a lesser extent rugby people who despise gaelic games.

Even look at journalists like Declan Lynch, George Byrne, Ian O'Doherty and Diarmuid Doyle who made a good career spewing prejudice about 'bogball' and 'stickfighting'.

The GAA as an organisation has not always acted wisely but a lot of the hostility stems from post colonial inferiority complex and cultural cringe. Also, by comparison, do you ever encounter people claiming to dislike the sport of soccer because of the multi billion euro corruption machine that administers the game?

bodice ripper

Of the various Sportsballs, hurling and camogie are very entertaining. Beats the **** out of watching a millionaire rolling around on the ground clutching their shin.

StupidLikeAFox

It's a great organisation. Same old tired clichés being thrown out here. As with most of these threads the criticisms are generally localised to one particular club ot a couple of people, and are not good examples of the organisation as a whole.

I also personally know of 3 lads who went for trials in England with soccer clubs when they were in school, never made it but the local GAA club were behind them all the way and they weren't ostracised for playing other sports. Know of a local club who have some of their under 16s playing rugby too, the seasons overlap but there is no issue with that either, they join up with the football team when the rugby is over and there is no pressure to pick one over the other. There are plenty of examples of this at club and county level - clubs are generally happy to have the few extra players and couldn't care less what else you do in your spare time

sabat

Someone mentioned camógie there; the name itself annoys me- it's as if the women are playing a completely different sport and not just hurling in a skirt.

DEFTLEFTHAND

sabat wrote: »

Someone mentioned camógie there; the name itself annoys me- it's as if the women are playing a completely different sport and not just hurling in a skirt.

There's a few minor differences in the rules. Also the game is run by the Camoige Association who are independent to the GAA.

Hammar

We have 38 players on our senior club GAA panel(that played last year)

The Soccer team in the parish is new and about 6-8 of their squad are GAA players.We have only one player whom plays Rugby.The Soccer team trained on part of the GAA grounds for years until they recently opened their own pitch.

When we are training/playing at weekends or midweek,the only topic of conversation is the Premier League or Champions League or in an odd case the Inter-county GAA championship or International Rugby.

Virtually every member of the squad is a soccer fan and from what i know of other neighbouring teams,the exact same seems to be true elsewhere.

I'd love to know where this present-day "GAA being anti-Soccer and Rugby is coming from". I've never seen any instances of it,in my 22/23 years as a GAA member.

I don't think any of us could deny past GAA wrongdoings such as the disgraceful implementation of rule 27,but thankfully, that is in the distant past.

sabat

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

There's a few minor differences in the rules. Also the game is run by the Camoige Association who are independent to the GAA.

Yes or no, is it the same sport?

sabat

Hammar wrote: »

I'd love to know where this present-day "GAA being anti-Soccer and Rugby is coming from". I've never seen any instances of it,in my 22/23 years as a GAA member.

The Tallaght Stadium affair?

KingMonkey

Grab All Association...definitely a bad thing,definitely....ten minutes to wapner!!! :pac:

I think football is underrated (every game now dismissed as a display of dragging and punching), hurling overrated (every game now hyped up as an example of "the words fastest field game")...but as a cultural or sporting organisation nothing gives one the sense of identity like belonging to a GAA club. I played GAA and soccer, I just preferred the latter and it was good craic...but looking back now it was hard to beat looking around a club dressing room and realising that I had known some of my teammates from when I was 2 and 3. And 40 years later, we still meet at games...the few I go to. I'm not saying it's a great thing, but no other sport is that rooted in community and parish.

armaghlad

This "anti other sports" is a myth. There's a massive cross over between GAA and other sports. Neil Lennon played for my club. A few guys I played underage with left after u 16 to play in Scotland and England. There was no animosity when they didnt make it and they were welcomed back with open arms.

armaghlad

RadiationKing wrote: »

Okay, whatever you think yourself there. :pac:

Yeah because only insular, backward thinking people would choose to live, work and integrate in another country...

iDave

In my experience the vitriol towards GAA is much worse than anything I've seen from the GAA in the other direction.
The GAA like any organisation with its reach to every corner in Ireland will have bad eggs, from cocky players to ignorant administrators. Cant be fully eliminated no matter how much you try.
And its massively flawed in terms of competition structures, scheduling, burnout, standard of punditry and bringing about change is slow and painful.

But it remains for me the greatest sporting organisation of them all. It gives every county and parish a chance to be proud of itself where it otherwise not have any other reason.
The codes themselves are the greatest sports conceived by man. And I'm standing up for football here, it is a brilliant sport bettered only by hurling.
The 'Grab All' reputation is very much unjustified.The Euro sign definitely influences some decision making but I find it highly ironic anyone can complain about this while watching a sporting event sanctioned by FIFA, UEFA, Prem Lge, EPCR, NFL etc.
FIFA literally has blood on its hands due to its greed and corruption. I'll take the GAA over that lot any day thank you very much.

Also laughing at the 'true blue' comment. Dublin is associated with blue because of the GAA

GLaDOS

Regarding sharing facilities this story was in the news recently, though maybe it was case of not seeking appropriate permission?

K-9

Deleted User wrote: »

I think football is underrated (every game now dismissed as a display of dragging and punching), hurling overrated (every game now hyped up as an example of "the words fastest field game")...but as a cultural or sporting organisation nothing gives one the sense of identity like belonging to a GAA club. I played GAA and soccer, I just preferred the latter and it was good craic...but looking back now it was hard to beat looking around a club dressing room and realising that I had known some of my teammates from when I was 2 and 3. And 40 years later, we still meet at games...the few I go to. I'm not saying it's a great thing, but no other sport is that rooted in community and parish.

The hurling season got criticised last season for not being great. Gaelic has suffered ironically enough for adapting tactics from soccer and rugby. A McGuinness Donegal is basically a Mourinho Chelsea or Inter team.

Muahahaha

I think its a great organisation but does have its flaws such as the evangelist way they try to get children to only play GAA. There is still a bigoted 'foreign games' mindset in the GAA as seen by them fining a Longford GAA club for allowing soccer to be played on their pitch- it was an under 13s training camp with Jamie Carragers Football School, AFAIK Carragher himself is now going to pay the fine on behalf of the GAA club.

I think their handling of Rule 42 though was quite progressive against a backdrop of very vocal opposition (those bigots again). But they got it through and it was the right thing to do.

Overall I think we're much better with it than without. The few vocal bigots in it will all die out soon anyway. In the meantime we can all enjoy top level local sports played every summer, wouldn't be the same without it.

robbiezero

K-9 wrote: »

The hurling season got criticised last season for not being great. Gaelic has suffered ironically enough for adapting tactics from soccer and rugby. A McGuinness Donegal is basically a Mourinho Chelsea or Inter team.

Hurling is starting to struggle a little bit.
Waterford and Kilkenny now are bringing the football tactics of bringing back forwards as defenders and playing sweepers and it is taking from the game as a spectacle. Last years All-Ireland was very poor, and the replayed game from the year before was also a poor game.
When played properly like in the 2014 drawn All-Ireland it is superb.